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Intel launches new Tolapai system-on-a-chip design

Intel has been talking up the embedded space for months, and the company is …

Intel launched its new embedded x86 system-on-a-chip (SoC) today, and in doing so, moved a small step closer toward eventually competing head-to-head with ARM. Formally, the new SoC platform is known as the Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor Family, but the project was code-named Tolapai, and that name trips off the tongue more readily. Tolapai isn't just a new integrated SoC; it's Intel's first volley into a mobile and "embedded" market space that the company believes will grow enormously in the coming years. Unlike how ARM and other companies use the term, when Intel talks about "embedded systems," the company isn't just referring to point-of-sale terminals or industrial applications, but to a category of what it refers to as mobile Internet devices (MIDs).Tolapai itself is aimed at the embedded storage market, point-of-sale terminals, and security applications, but Intel's longer-term roadmap is considerably more ambitious.

The term MID, in Intel parlance, isn't just a reference to a form factor, but an expression of what a device is (or isn't) capable of. According to Doug Davis, vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, MIDs should deliver the "actual" Internet experience. When asked to clarify, Davis stated that the word actual referred to "the ability to run the Internet applications that are typically developed for the IA architecture (i.e., Core 2 Duo, Centrino)."

From Intel's perspective, pushing x86 technology into such mobile Internet devices makes perfect sense. Non-x86 processors and system-on-chip (SoC) parts based on ARM, MIPS, and PowerPC architectures still hold a significant power consumption advantage over any hypothetical x86 SoC, but that once-insurmountable gap has narrowed recently by process shrinks and power optimizations. At the 65nm process node, Intel still won't be close on power consumptions, but things start to get interesting at 45nm, and really interesting at 22nm. But more on that later.

Intel claims that the EP80579 is an entirely new design, so let's take a peek inside.

The "Acceleration Services Unit" in yellow above is only present on chips that support Intel's QuickAssist technology. Intel's taken a different path with Tolapai. Instead of designing a monolithic SoC and scaling it by frequency (or frequency and cache), Intel built itself a modular core that can be configured in any number of ways. Customers who want stronger CPU performance, but need only minimal video and I/O capabilities, will be able to purchase SoC's with Intel's QuickAssist technology, while other customers with different I/O, video, and CPU needs will have appropriately optimized products available to them as well.

The QuickAssist moniker refers to the acceleration abstraction layer (AAL) Intel has developed for Tolapai. This layer allows programmers to access a series of field programmable gate arrays (FPGA's) attached to the SoC's FSB. The term QuickAssist doesn't refer to any particular method of utilizing these accelerators, but to the framework itself.

Current Tolapai products are all based on Intel's Pentium M processor, at clock speeds that range from 600MHz-1.2GHz. Asked why Intel chose the Pentium M for its first-generation embedded SoC, instead of Atom, Davis responded that the processor had been available at the time, and was suitable to the task at hand. Intel declined to give a product-by-product TDP breakdown, but indicated that Tolapai TDP ranges from 11W at the low end (600MHz, no accelerators) to 21W at the high-end (1200MHz, w/accelerators). (By way of comparison, the most feature-rich and robust embedded ARM SoCs typically run in the sub-2W range, so Tolapai still isn't even close in terms of raw power draw.)

The Pentium M won't be hanging around for very long; future embedded SoC products from Intel will be based on Atom, which will reduce the overall part's power draw significantly. Intel, were it collectively peering over my shoulder at this very moment, would be quick to point out that there's no reason to avoid the Pentium M-based product series now if you intend to build a straight-up MID. Tolapai, even in its current incarnation, has a 45 percent smaller footprint and consumes 34 percent less power than a current-generation equivalent IA-based device.

I'd advise against trying to map Intel's statements on the long-term importance of MIDs against current Tolapai TDP. The company's presentation made it clear that the Intel envisions a not-too-distant future in which ubiquitous Internet connectivity between people and machines will have become the worldwide norm. The "worldwide" part might take a bit longer, but the types of low-cost, Internet-capable devices that Intel is proposing will be critical components of any strategy to bring the planet online. Intel's position could be concisely, and I think accurately, summarized as "The Internet is going everywhere, and we're going with it." But of course, as long as the TDPs of x86 SoCs stay above 2W, there will be plenty of places where the Internet goes that Intel can't (yet) follow.